I hate elevators.
I actually used to be scared of them and would take the stairs when possible (yup, even if it was multiple flights!) – I got over that during my time at Brock. I spent two and a half years involved with the Students’ Union, which had weekly council meetings on the 13th floor of the Schmon Tower. You couldn’t walk all the way up or down (unless it was an emergency, of course) so I had to get used to the elevator.
I still get nervous in elevators from time to time, though, and it doesn’t help that pop culture keeps using elevators to kill people or do creepy things. I know, I know, getting squished/decapitated/crushed/murdered by an elevator is probably an irrational fear… or so I thought, until I moved into my apartment building, where the elevator from hell is trying to kill me.
I wish I was joking.
We have two elevators in my building: both suck, but there’s one, which I not-so-affectionately call “THE elevator”, I swear to God is totally possessed.
Here’s five reasons why.
1. It legitimately tried to kill me once. Shortly after we moved in, I got into the elevator to go to work. Alone, like most mornings. So the elevator is going down, passes floor 9, 8… then when it gets to 7 there’s this terrible noise, the elevator jerks to a stop so hard I loose my balance and nearly drop my coffee (it’s a good thing the lid was closed or I would have spilled it everywhere). The doors fly open, and its STILL HALF IN THE SHAFT. In horror, I see my entire life flash before my eyes as the thing bounces about 2 feet up and down (so I keep seeing opening, shaft, opening, shaft). This entire ordeal probably was three seconds or less, but it seemed like an eternity. I screamed, jumped out of the elevator, and took the stairs for a week. Sidenote: ever since the above tried-to-kill me incident there’s this weird clicking noise as the elevator passes by the 7th floor.
2. I’ve gotten stuck in it. Twice. Both times I was alone. In fact, 90 per cent of the time I AM alone when this stuff happens, which makes me worry I’m starting to sound like a crazy lady when I talk about THE elevator. The first time, I was only stuck for about a minute before it started moving again. This was also near the 7th floor. Maybe it’s not the elevator trying to kill me, but floor#7?
3. It likes to open and closes it’s doors as if someone is blocking the sensor. Once, The Boy was on his way to the store and ended up walking down 10 flights of stairs after waiting for the elevator for a good ten minutes. Turns out, BOTH elevators were stuck in the basement. THE elevator? Yeah, its lights were flickering, and the door was just opening and closing repeatedly. Totally creepy. Especially at two in the morning, in the basement. Ugh. This happened again a few months later, only without the flickering lights and on the first floor. Open, close, open, close, open, close.
4. It takes you to whatever floor it feels like. Repeatedly. This one is a fairly new development. Recently, when I get into the elevator, it takes you to the wrong floor. The first time it happened, I went to the 11th floor. I was pretty damn sure I had hit the correct button, but since it was only one floor off I told myself I must have made a mistake. Then a few days later, The Boy and I ended up on the 15th floor. We hit button 10, and it took us back down. Weird, but we shrugged it off. Last night, the elevator took me from the basement to the 15th floor again. When I hit 10, it took me back down to the basement. So I hit 10 again, and it took me back to the 15th. I walked from there.
5. The floor lights don’t always work. Sometimes, some of them light up. Sometimes NONE of them light up. And sometimes, on really lucky days, all of them light up. The weird thing is when only some of them light up, it’s never the same ones that don’t. The other weird thing? When the lights are being all wonky and not lighting up properly, those are the days when the elevator goes to whatever floor it feels like going to.
